Tell me more about NYU. I thought it had a pretty top-notch reputation (although I just looked at their music faculty list and it was significantly less impressive than I expected.) This makes it sound like it's pretty highly ranked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_University#Rankings . It placed in the top 50 on the Times Higher Education list.

yeah upthread a while back there was some discussion of NYU and I looked up some numbers and its average % of demonstrated student financial need met by financial aid (grants + work-study + subsidized loan approvals) was 70%. Compared to 90-100% of demonstrated need met for all the other places I looked up (so like some pseudorandom sampling of SLACs, flagship publics, and private unis).

which is to say a student from a family that can exactly afford their FAFSA-calculated EFC every year, including maxed subsidized loans, attending NYU could easily find themselves taking on $10,000 or more in private debt over four years that they'd avoid at NYU's putative peer institutions. The situation is more dramatic for students financing a private college education almost entirely through private debt.

It sort of seems like there is this hole that middle-class families can fall into in the financial aid landscape where if you are from a family that has a high-ish annual income but your parents haven't been saving for your education or aren't interested in paying for it, the EFC can way overshoot what your family is actually able and willing to pay. Whereas if your parents' household income is closer to 35 than 95 (eyeballing here), plenty of private institutions will be able to cover like 75%+ of your tuition in grants, and if it's like in the 200+ range then you are a full pay student and likely nobody involved is blinking an eye.

I recall there was some publicity attached to Harvard announcing some years ago up front that families making up to I think $60,000 would get a full grant aid package from Harvard. Just as another angle on the weirdness of the market.

I'm curious if my high school just had zero college counseling (despite being loaded with AP classes and now a IB school - I graduated with 21 possible AP credits IIRC and was nowhere close to having the most) or if I just missed out on it via fucking off a lot.kinda lucked out - I got into a private liberal arts college planning to get a poli sci degree, but had zero idea how to navigate financial aid so I probably saved myself $100k in debt for what would have turned into a history degree

It sort of seems like there is this hole that middle-class families can fall into in the financial aid landscape where if you are from a family that has a high-ish annual income but your parents haven't been saving for your education or aren't interested in paying for it, the EFC can way overshoot what your family is actually able and willing to pay.

this describes ~60% of the people I grew up with - middle-class high school of a middle-class suburba whole lot of parents (incl. mine) saw serious increases in income in the mid-to-late '90s after scraping by forever so there were no college savings but the EFC was way out of line with what they expected or were willing to foot the bill for

The university belongs to us, those who teach, learn, research, council, clean, and create community. Together we can and do make the university work.

But today this university is in crisis. The neoliberal restructuring of post-secondary education seeks to further embed market logic and corporate-style management into the academy, killing consultation, autonomy and collective decision-making. The salaries of university presidents and the ranks of administrators swell, but the people the university is supposed to serve — students — are offered assembly-line education as class sizes grow, faculty is over-worked, and teaching positions become increasingly precarious. International students and scholars seeking post-secondary or graduate education are treated as cash cows rather than as people who might contribute to both research and society. Debt-burdened students are seen as captive markets by administrators, while faculty is encouraged to leverage public funds for private research on behalf of corporate sponsors.

In August 2011, when Diana Wang began her seventh unpaid internship, this time at Harper’s Bazaar, the legendary high-end fashion magazine, she figured that her previous six internships – at a modeling agency, a PR firm, a jewelry designer, a magazine, an art gallery and a state governor’s office – had prepared her for the demands of New York’s fashion world.

“I was so determined to make this one really worth my while,” says the 28-year-old Wang, who moved from Columbus, Ohio, to New York, where she was living with her boyfriend (also working as an unpaid intern at one point) and living off of her savings. “I knew I couldn’t do anymore internships after this.”

As it turned out, Wang’s internship was just like many of the thousands of others: unrewarding in terms of both pay and marketable experience — not to mention the lack of a job offer. In fact, the only difference between her internship and most others was what happened about a month after it ended. Wang sued.

yeah I saw that. it's not really based on any real data. like yeah, 'it happens'. but the overwhelming number of white ppl who left nyc over the last decade were archie bunker outer borough types, as you can see by looking at it by neighborhood: http://www.urbanresearchmaps.org/plurality/

hip new yorkers moving to kansas city would make a good quiddities article, but there's not a lot of evidence that it happens enough to 'be a thing'. and the cleveland renaissance - it's downtown doubling in population over the last 20 years - well, that's 4500 people. which is great, and I'd imagine the number would be even higher if it weren't for the various constraints to downtown cleveland living - but 4500 people is a drop in the bucket even as far as the cleveland metro population goes.

“I’m practical,” she says. “I’m not going to work at a non-profit for my entire life; I know that’s not possible. I’m realistic about the things that I need for a lifestyle that I’ve become accustomed to.” Though she admits she’s at least partially worried of ending up at the bank “longer than [she] sees [her]self there now,” at present she sees it as a “hugely stimulating and educational” way to spend the next few years.

I think she does capture something, though, about the extent to which a certain kind of ivy student is on a kind of conveyor belt in life. Lifelong non-autonomy combined with desperate need for affirmation combined with expectation of material comfort = path of least resistance. Someone e-mails you about a "prestigious" job in your second year of school, you say yes in spite of your vague notions of doing something more "meaningful." And you don't just do it, you rationalize it.

i have found that while it's important to feel occupationally fulfilled in some regard (i have continued to write despite having an unrelated day job), there are so many other areas of life that are important too. is it better to be happy at work and then go home and cry about bills piling up and debt and getting into fights with your significant other about money, and struggling to pay rent, or better to maybe feel unfulfilled at work and then have all that other stuff a little bit worked out? i mean, the choice is not an exact binary. even at uninspiring jobs you can find things to be proud about and ways to deploy your specific talents + skills in a satisfying way. and obv there are those that figure out how to live doing their dream jobs (even if that means cutting back in other areas). it's not just about luxury tho. maybe you want to start a family and now you need to move into a bigger place, buy diapers, pay for childcare, etc. it's not just the path of least resistance. sometimes you shuffle your priorities.

(nb i use the second person a lot here but i think it's obv that i'm talking a large bit about my own experiences...)

I think that's all reasonable. I'm someone who very much based my job decision on a balance of salary, time to see family and opportunity for advancement rather than what I would find most interesting or meaningful (although it's not completely bereft of interest). But I don't think that's how Yale grads are deciding their jobs. I think it's more "here's an easy way I can get a job without having to really go out and compete, and I will continue to be told I'm special and get paid handsomely"